


At a Spring of Craftiness

by ninemoons42



Category: Irish Mythology, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Fights, Gen, Inspired by Fanart, Knives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-11
Updated: 2012-10-11
Packaged: 2017-11-16 02:28:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/534480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42





	At a Spring of Craftiness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Loobeeinthesky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loobeeinthesky/gifts).



title: At a Spring of Craftiness  
author: [](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/)**ninemoons42**  
word count: approx. 1810  
fandom: X-Men: First Class [movieverse]  
characters: Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr  
rating: R  
notes: Written as a birthday present for [loobeeinthesky](http://loobeeinthesky.tumblr.com/), inspired by her X-Men Tales Celtic AU art [here](http://loobeeinthesky.tumblr.com/post/29901673319/small-blurry-preview-of-my-x-men-tales-celtic-au) and [here](http://tahariels.tumblr.com/post/30813096558/as-some-of-you-may-know-loobeeinthesky-has). Charles is the Hawk-Messenger, Erik the Wolf-Messenger, and both are ostensibly in the service of the Morrígan. Warnings for war and violence and a knock-down drag-out fight.

  
The land was at war, and had been for a generation and more. The warriors survived just long enough to lose or to win and to bear the children who would be thrown into battle themselves as soon as they could grasp sword and shield and spear.

The land was at war, and it was not a war of their choosing, and they were drawn into it as inexorably as blood called to blood: the blood of the dying called for revenge and for justice.

He was present at every battle; he was the harbinger and the tipping point and the constant victor; they called him names, fair and foul alike – but to the commanders of the armies who knew of him, who prayed to him and through him to the One of Night’s Wings, he was the hawk-messenger, he was the man in the feathered cloak.

From his perch on a high branch he could see the two armies, see the battle that was about to be joined. The land was waiting for him; the warriors were waiting for him.

He drew his knives and threw his head back and began to sing.

War-cries rent the air and he took them in, made them part of the song that was beating in time with his heart and with the pulse of the world – of Her world. Over the fierce clash and cry of the fight he could _see_ everything: there were those who were worthy, and there were those who were destined to survive, and there were those who had been dying from the moment they were born.

Wind in his hair and the fight far below him. It was getting closer and closer to the moment of decision, when he would have to intervene. He knew what was coming – the mind that surrounded his and gave him his strength and his power showed him the way, led him down his difficult and dangerous path, and now it was calling out, telling him to strike....

Hot blood on his hands, a shocked face looking up at him, and another beyond that.

The woman in the blue and red stared at him, aghast, and he twisted his knife just a little more to the right and she dropped, gurgling and helpless. The remains of a prayer were still in her eyes as they went dark.

That left the other woman, all in black, and she stared at him in shock and in sympathy before she crossed her fists at the wrists and held them over her heart: the salute of a southern tribe, one in which the women led and fought and raided and the men were their loyal soldiers and bondsmen. This one had hers standing at her back, the torque around his neck matching the rings on both of her hands.

And it was that bondsman who spoke first. “The Winged Goddess has favored us.”

“Only for today,” was his lady’s reply, and there was respect and fear in her dark eyes. “I thank you, hawk-messenger. We will not question her will or her workings or her warden. The field is yours. May we meet again, as we are now.”

The wind came up again as the victors left the battlefield; the losers had long since fled for fear of their lives, at least those who could still flee in some way or another. This was not the first time that he had come to a place where the defeated had fallen by their own hands or their comrades as much as by their foes’.

He turned again and invoked Her name, and afterwards fell to his knees beside the fallen commander. It took him only a moment to find the sign that he was looking for: the imprint of a wolf’s foot, black and red in the thin skin of the woman’s wrist.

He hissed in uncertainty and the wind died down in his anger, so that the ends of the streamers tied around arm and ankle hung still, even as he got back to his feet and began to walk away from the battlefield.

 _They_ were at work, here, or they had been. This battle was freshly lost; there was no doubt that the other messenger would still be nearby, for if the battle had been meant to turn in his favor it would have been him standing over the woman in black’s corpse, wolf pelt hanging strange and still across broad shoulders.

The man in the feathered cloak closed his eyes and began to _listen_ : he pulled in every sound he could hear for miles and turned them over, one after the other, in his mind. Soldiers running. Distant birdsong. A rivulet trickling over rocks and roots, toward a hidden pond.

Any thought he had of going there to wash the blood off his hands and blades was instantly cut off when he heard the sigh and the splash and knew that there was someone already there – and the breath told him who that someone was.

The wolf-messenger: he would have watched over the battle as it unfolded, even after he must have known that he was not to be favored on this day.

Now he was at rest, perhaps, and the dark impulse in the hawk-messenger made itself known: now he wanted to attack that messenger, to see him fallen at his feet, to find out if there was some way that he could be redeemed, for the wolf-messenger carried a foul corruption in his heart and only She could free him from it.

He took up his knife and started for the pond in complete silence; even the wind bent to his wishes so the other messenger could not scent him.

Into the cover of the trees, into the shadowed silent leaf-canopy. Tiny splashing sounds, as though the wolf-messenger were drinking or perhaps washing his weapons.

The hawk-messenger stepped around the roots of the last trees, carefully staying in their gloom, and followed the bars of weak sunlight slanting across the leaves and the sharp-bladed grass. He could hear the rivulet at his feet, and he was almost at the pond, when the shadow in the pond broke cover, broke up from the water and climbed back out.

Bare skin tanned and crossed with dozens of scars: many of them were naught but thin white lines, but there were a few that seemed more permanently etched into the messenger, darker than old blood, darker than the sigils pressed into him: protection, invocation. Twisted, those symbols were; akin to the ones that the hawk-messenger wore and yet completely different. Like mirror images, like broken letters and signs, and every inked line was _wrong_ , was a wound and not a badge.

Better to put him out of his misery, perhaps, the hawk-messenger thought, and he flipped the knife around in his hand so that he was holding it balanced at the sharp tip. He was still crouched behind a tree as he got ready to throw, to show that mercy, and he took a breath and raised the knife and began to pray -

There was a crash, and before the hawk-messenger could react the wolf-messenger was looking in his direction, was looking straight into his eyes even with the gloom of the forest still shrouding them both.

He hissed at his naked opponent and could not run away, for the other was walking away from the pool with that deliberate noiseless tread, a predator scenting its foe and heading straight for it.

The hawk-messenger didn’t wait – he threw himself forward at the wolf-messenger, fought to get a grip on slippery skin. Fingers spread wide and hooked and raking at his opponent, bright hot tang of blood a sudden scent in the darkness.

The wolf-messenger shouted harshly, let fly: the hawk-messenger dodged the first strike only to move right into the second and pain exploded around his eye – he threw his head back and screamed, and wrapped his hands around his opponent’s throat, and began to _squeeze_. Neither an honorable death nor a painless one.

They twisted and thrashed on the grass. One of them had the advantage of his grip; the other the raw strength of his fists. They were wet with both blood and water now.

“Yield!” the hawk-messenger spat right into the other’s face.

“No.” And then the wolf-messenger _exploded_ upwards from the ground, his fist striking true.

Pain bloomed at the hawk-messenger’s temple; he shrieked and rolled away, kicking out as best as he could. The answering gasp told him he’d at least struck back, but that was little consolation, because the pain was nearly blinding -

And there was more of it, as the wolf-messenger suddenly leapt up and landed _hard_ on him, hitting out with fist and foot and it was all the hawk-messenger could do to twist away, to fling up a hand to shield his face; it took everything he had to reach out to the other, to pin him down as best as he could, unable to escape this bout unscathed himself as he took several solid blows to his sides and to his knees before he could take a breath and look down at his captive, his _temporary_ captive because the wolf-messenger was squirming to get away.

Right now he was locked down with twisted arm and pinned ankle; that didn’t stop him from bucking and grunting as he tried to regain his balance or his feet.

“Stay!” the hawk-messenger hissed, keeping his brutal grip on his opponent’s wrist, enough that the bones began to grind together and he thought that might be the only reason why the wolf-messenger hissed and subsided – but didn’t calm down.

“Kill me.”

“No. You must face Her for judgment.”

“You were ready to kill me.”

“What makes you think I do not wish to do so?” He crushed his opponent further into the earth. “You kill joyfully, without reason, and you invoke Her name as you do so – you _poison_ her!”

The wolf-messenger merely bared his teeth in response.

“You do not deny it.”

“I am made to _kill_ in Her name.”

 _“No,”_ the hawk-messenger hissed. “That is untrue. You are not Hers to decide this.”

“I am – _made_ – to kill!”

Before the hawk-messenger could reply, he shrieked the true name of the Winged Goddess into the wind – and there was a reply, a sweet savage scream.

“Then I am made to judge you,” he cried, and he lashed out with all of the power that he had left, and the wolf-messenger writhed and howled beneath him, one with him in the pain and the ecstasy of Her presence.  



End file.
